Search Symmetry Blog

The Anatomy of Link Building in SEO

While search engine algorithms evolve periodically, the relevancy of link building and content marketing remains at the top of the list for important SEO markers.

Link building is effective in implementing online campaigns, and if done right, can bring increased traffic to websites in a short amount of time.

Yet, with SEO evolving, many are not aware as to how link building can be made effective. After all, there is a lot to understand.

We’ve decided to break down link building so you can easily digest the concepts and objectives effective link building can help you achieve for your online base.

Understanding Link Building and its Importance

Defining Link Building

Link building is a process through which a website acquires hyperlinks from other websites to create a network of relevance.

Typically, adding a hyperlink or a link on a website works as a way through which users navigate between pages online. Search engines such as Google scour such links and determine the connection between each link and the individual pages on the websites.

By doing so, they crawl through websites, and thereby create a connection that allows for easier access. That, in turn, brings in more traffic.

Though there are many techniques for link building, it is agreed that link building in SEO is one of the more difficult tasks. It can be tricky to master the art of high quality link building.

Keep in mind that search engines are programmed to become smarter each day. Stuffing content with numerous links isn’t a constructive or effective way to get ahead of the competition, especially if the link isn’t useful.

Why Search Engines Need Hyperlinks

There are two fundamental factors involved.

One; search engines use links to discover new websites. Two; they then use these links to determine whether the website should be ranked higher.

Let’s take an article by The Atlantic to describe these facts further.

According to the article, as of 2016, there were more than 935,950,801 websites active online. But this number fluctuates due to the count of inactive websites. This number was expected to exceed 1 billion websites. With so many webpages to crawl through, Google could use all the help it can get. And that’s exactly what these links provide it.

The first page on Google only displays 10 websites. And the websites that utilize SEO tactics wisely get the best spots.

How Search Engines Use Hyperlinks

Once the search engine finishes crawling through the website, it extracts all the content on the webpage and adds that to its indexes.

Through that, it decides whether the content is of high quality by identifying connection with various high quality websites.

Let’s say a higher-quality website links its page to your webpage. That would lead to a better rank for you in the search result.

Consider the example of the link we’ve provided above. As a reputable newspaper, The Atlantic’s chances of being ranked higher because of its link to various other websites, including ours, would increase.

Why Hyperlinks Work

Let’s say you have a medical question you need addressed.

Would you trust the opinion of three doctors and a reliable healthcare organization, or the suggestions of people you just met, with no credentials to show? Of course, you’d choose the former. And this perfectly depicts the effectiveness of links.

Links are seen as vote of confidence.

If the website wasn’t reliable, it wouldn’t get linked. The theory here is, when someone links to your website, they probably believe that it is an effective source. The more votes (or links) it gets, the more trusted it will be.

But that’s not to say that spamming a particular link would get the website on the first page of the search results. Remember; search engines are much smarter now, and know how the ranking system can be manipulated.

A Word of Caution…

Google’s regular updates mean that search engines are more adept at weeding out unworthy websites from those that actively practice effective SEO tactics. Websites can no longer submit their domain to web directories for a link in return.

In addition, Google penalizes rankings for websites that overuse various link building techniques. However, this does not expand to links incorporated in article directories, press releases and advertorials.

3 Important Facts about Links Used in Link Building

Link Quality

Quality of a link matters. If a link from a large, respectable site offers enough information to justify its use in the content; this makes it a quality link. Being linked in the content would not only boost your website’s ranking, it would also work from the respectable site due to its reliability factor. Links from neighborhood sites that are more relevant to your own site would also count.

Anchor Text

The words of a link are known as the link text or anchor text. These links are seen by greater search engines as a way through which websites describe one another.

Let’s say you have a blog related to books and book reviews. Simply put, if someone mentions and links your blog on their website, that inclusion would indicate that they perceive your platform to be an authority.

Number of Links

Before, adding massive number of links from one website was considered a good SEO tactic. However, that number has decreased since search engines have become much better at evaluating those links.

Common SEO practices now use fewer number of links from good sources (due to aforementioned reasons). That being said, it should be noted that this indicates linking different websites, rather than using links from one website.

The Benefits of Link Building for Your Business

As a comprehensive web and SEO services provider in the United States, we’ve worked with numerous small and large businesses, each using white-hat SEO strategies to better their online rankings.

And for each client, we’ve found link building to be beneficial through the following ways:

Building Relationships–Link building improves our outreach to other blogs and websites in the industry. This outreach relates to the promotion of your idea, product or service and helps us foster long-term relationships with other businesses that may influence your success.

Referral Traffic –While a link from a high-traffic website can lead to an increase in traffic, a link that offers particular referral to a certain website can also work in your favor. If the website exposes its viewers to a relevant link that’s directly related to the particular audience, they would take that information more seriously. Rather than what they may read in a link directingthem to Forbes magazine.

Brand Building –Your brand needs to be established in order for it to become an authority in your industry. With outreach and linking relevant info to the content, you show your readers that you’re relating your findings with expertise.

How Our Services Can Help You

Link building is a crucial part of SEO marketing strategies. However, if you are to utilize their benefits, it’s important that you have website worth linking to.

Before building links, specify your resources. Build links to blog posts, research studies, graphics, numerous tools and more. It’s important that these assets exist before you start your campaign through link building.

So when you’ve done something that can truly help the online population; that is when your website will be worthy of sharing. And for that, we can help.

Search Symmetry offers a number of digital marketing solutions that bring in results and web traffic. We capitalize on your services and provide you with the help you need through effective SEO tactics including on-page and off-page link building among other service to achieve results.

If you would like to avail our services, contact Search Symmetry by calling (323) 825-4594 or click here to fill a form for a free preliminary SEO audit report! We want your website to achieve your goals. Letus guide you!